Can a Nigerian Win the Nobel Prize in any of the Sciences? : A Facebook Dialogue

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Can a Nigerian Win the Nobel Prize in any of the Sciences?

Muyiwa Aladeyelu:

If you have the same brain as Einstein but you are a lecturer in Nigeria, you can't win a Nobel Prize in science. It's almost impossible. The same reason a player in clubs like Madrid or Barca will find it easier to win Ballon d'Or than his counterpart in smaller clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City. Take it or leave it, your location is MORE important than your talent. Have you not heard? TALENT is universal but opportunity is not. No matter how good some seeds are, they can't grow in certain soils. For any meaningful harvest, the seed must be compatible with the soil. Therefore, Nobel Prize in science stuff is almost a mission impossible for someone in Nigeria.

My Response: But Einstein was not working in an academic institution when he did the research that got him the Nobel Prize for Physics

[Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth]

Yes two nigerians deserve the nobel prize  for physics .do your  research. The first is Alexander animalu and then  a certain professor  okoye asmn astronomer. Professor  animalu s thesis jugde the best out of ten best thesis  at Cambridge  in 40 years.several of these best have won the nobel prize

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[Ogedi Ohajekwe]

I have heard or read:

He worked in a patent office, as a clark, where he came in contact with all new inventions and ideas of the time.

He was a theoretical physicist and was not able to secure academic position.

He had the brains, he had some time.

It is not always easy to draw straight lines from one’s world lines to outcomes.

On Oct 6, 2022, at 6:56 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Well put Ogedi.

Thanks

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[ugwuanyi Lawrence]

• Well put Ogedi

My reactions:

• "Well put Toyin but..."

 "When we underplay the conditions through which good ideas emerge and grow we make some huge mistake I think. French philosopher  Renes Descartes probably meant this when he chose to live the  life he called "the life of the mind". Call it whatever but when a thinker functions in a considerable challenging environment  it is laughable to dream of a Nobel prize- assuming that this should be considered  the greatest way to measure intellectual achievement!

I think there is something that  is taken  for granted in the birth and generation of good ideas  here- it the kind of social organization/society  where a thinker functions. Most human interactions constitutes or should lead to thought/research - but what manner or quality of thought can emerge from  a significantly violent society-  where through  words, actions- the intellectual  would encounter more things that would distort thought  and are considerably violent to the mind than  those that can advance and develop thought? 

"Just a question and a thought!"

Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi,Ph.D

Professor of Philosophy 

UNIABUJA

 

[Michael Afolayan]

I have a different perspective on this issue. They said the same thing about all of Nobel laurels until Wole Soyinka won his in literature in 1986. I agree, though, exposure is important (not necessarily location). Today, the fact that online publishing is almost the norm, rather than an exception, I can assure you that the time will come when a Nigerian from one of our universities, research institutions, or even in independent practice, will win the Nobel in science. It's a prediction, not a prophecy - so, I don't deserve being cast the stone if it is not fulfilled in my lifetime. But, seriously now, I think it's a matter of time, and a Nigerian will win a Nobel prize in science, mathematics, economics, etc.

MOA

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Great.

I actually meant to write 'a person working in Nigeria" 

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[Dr. Oohay]

Does this question not smack of “inferiority complex” (aka our underlying chronic problem)?

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Perhaps it's a call to introspection

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[Chika Okeke-Agulu]

Given the present state of research in the sciences across Nigerian universities, it is hard to see this possibility anytime soon (decades). Let's even see someone/people there win other prestigious prizes that are good indications of where important work--recognized by their peers--is going on. 

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

There are many other prestigious prizes such as The Right Livelihood Award which is sometimes referred to as "The Alternative Nobel Prize” and which is in fact tailored to be more relevant to rewarding efforts that are more geared towards our more down-to-earth, development goals.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Rightlivelihood.org: Nigeria

The Right Livelihood Award: Nigeria

Right Livelihood College Campus debuts in Nigeria 

The organisation's headquarters is a five minutes walk from where I live, so inevitably they are often on my  “mind”. 

Before Soyinka became a Nobel  Laureate I visited the Academy's Library a couple of times. I was last there to collect a sound recording from the Nobel press conference with Mo Yan, on December 6, 2012  - which I was going to send to Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju 

Back in 1985, fresh from Nigeria I was thinking of nominating Tai Solarin of Mayflower fame for the award , but procrastinated and procrastinated and never got around to nominating him. As the saying goes, “ Procrastination is the thief of time”, just as the bard put it, and it’s no laughing matter :

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

I was totally brainwashed about Tai Solarin on  31st December 1981 ( new year’s eve) in Port Harcourt, along with my Better Half and our son, as guests of Mr Dulip a very lovable Indian dude from Kerala & family  - he went on and on and on  - Tai Solarin, Tai Solarin ( like a mantra) but he himself was a devotee of JESUS  and his main pastor was one Oral Robert  - I believe that one of his sons,  Rani, later on, studied at the Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa, Oklahoma..Mr. Dulip went on and on and on about Tai Solarin until the news came in, BREAKING NEWS: Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings had done it again, thus earning himself the title ”Junior Jesus” - the redeemer who came twice. In my opinion at the time - he should have been awarded the Right Livelihood award, on the spot….

Lo and behold Brother Muhammadu Buhari was to follow in Junior Jesus’s footsteps only two years later, thus raising the question, should Brother Mo have also been awarded the Right Livelihood Prize for what the  NPN status quo was complaining about, namely, “ the overthrow of democracy” not through the ballot box but through the barrel of a gun?

 The answer to that one is that democracy is not achieved by rigged elections and secondly there’s supposed to be a great difference in both theory and practice, between democracy and what in effect turns out to be the establishment of a lootocracy in its place.

Today,  when it comes to nominations for the Right Livelihood Award, with e.g. Nigeria in mind, I suppose that we ought to be taking a closer look at the Human Rights sectors, women and poor men empowerment,  meaningful  - small is beautiful, cooperatives, entrepreneurial agriculture enterprises, Civil Liberties Organisations such as the one being run by my hero, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani. 

Of relevance here too - except that they do not seem to be connected to any organisation doing work on the ground, people like Doyen Ayo Olukotun, Ojogbon Toyin Falola, Jibrin Ibrahim, and if implemented, some of the ideas coming out of Progressive Governors Forum, should qualify, should pass the litmus test, and there’äs also Chidi the poet, steadily tilling the soil, preparing the ground, and last if not least the likes of gossip-monger Per Roguey who I notice is gradually toning down his usual highfalutin journalese because he’s probably running out of steam….

 Paratroopers jump ( livelihood)